ForgetMeNot
by SpellotapedSnidget
Summary: It's the seventh year – her sixth – and as she is offered a drink Ginny ponders about the changes Hogwarts and its inhabitants have gone through. To cope, alcohol is a common choice, so why does she hesitate to take the offer?


„No, thanks. I don't drink."

My sentence is always met with a weird look. I understand that. Which 16-year old doesn't drink, especially now, with those rotten Carrow siblings terrorizing the school. The answer is simple: me.

Just to get things clear. It's not because I'm religious or because I demonize alcohol. It's not because I'm a good girl (no one who knows me would think that anyway) or because of some shitty belief about diet. Not even because people behave like morons when they are drunk. Although they do. Sometimes in a funny way, sometimes not. It's the forgetting part I dread.

Not that I wouldn't want to forget some things. I'm quite keen on forgetting the sound of insane laughter which escaped the lips of a little first year after being tortured with the Cruciatus curse one time to many. Or how a deep slash was printed on Neville's face when he refused to step aside. Or how I start to hate the color of my house because it just looks too similar to fresh blood. And there's too much blood in Hogwarts nowadays to ignore the comparison.

I understand why Seamus gets drunk most nights these days. He's craving for the muffled feeling which the liquid provides. He's trying to fend back the scenarios in his head involving Dean. That his best friend might get caught. Imprisoned. Tortured. Killed. He wants to forget the possibility that it could already have happened.

Madam Pomfrey was forbidden from tending to our wounds if they were gained by detention. Officially, she hasn't much to do anymore. But she sneaks to the common rooms anyway to help her protégés. However, there are too many injured to take care of, so most of us older students tell her to look after the younger ones unless we have something sinister. The meaning of the word sinister got stretched quite a bit.

Neville has discovered stitches for himself. The muggle technique my father used about two years ago. It seems like ages now. It didn't do him much good back then. But Neville has proven that it's not something to discard easily. We are not advanced enough for proper healing spells. Hermione would have been good enough. But she's not here. So Neville uses stitches. And he uses alcohol. To disinfect his wound and to numb the pain by swallowing large mouthfuls of the strong liquid. Sometimes he uses it to forget too. But rarely. He's the one who holds us together. He's the strong one now. Who would have thought that of little clumsy Neville? Not me, certainly.

Then there are the professors. The proper ones. The ones not forcing us to torture. The ones who haven't killed our headmaster. Trelawney, of course, has started drinking during Umbridge's period of power. But I saw Sprout beckoning her for a drink twice now. And I'm sure there's more alcohol exchanged between the professors while the students' eyes are not able to fall on their figures. I don't know if they drink to forget. Maybe it's just to help them sleep. Maybe they just enjoy the taste.

I certainly can remember a time when alcohol was used for celebration. My brother's wedding for example. Though that didn't went down the way it should have. But what did? At the end the strong liquid was not taken out of joy. It was drowned to forget that the ministry had been overthrown. To forget that Harry, Ron and Hermione had disappeared. To soothe my mum's nerves. A tonic had been used for that last one in the end.

No, I certainly wouldn't mind forgetting those things. Specific things. But that's not the way alcohol works. You don't get to choose. And I can't cope with not knowing what I have done, where I have been. I can't cope with not being in control of my body.

Many of the students might think of me as brave because I rather took the Cruciatus curse than to let somebody imperius me. It wasn't bravery though. It was fear. Panic, really.

As much as I worry about my family, about my friends, about Harry - the nightmares I wake up to most are the ones haunting me since first year. Since _him_.

When Neville brought an injured second year to our common room it was normal to help, to press upon his wound until Madam Pomfrey arrived. What was not normal was to remain kneeling on the floor and staring at my hands. Everyone thought I was in shock. In some twisted way I was. But not over the cruel injuries covering the poor boy. My brain worked to figure out if the red on my hands was really blood. Or if it was paint. At that thought my eyes darted over the walls, searching frantically for crimson letters. My breathing quickened. My heart hammered against my chest. My mind ripped forcefully through my memories to search for any holes, for periods of time which were lost to my consciousness. It took me a while to calm down.

I remember the day Harry said "I forgot". That day back at Grimmauld place in forth year. It had hurt more than I wanted to admit. But his sentence summoned it up quite well. It seemed as if everyone forgot what had happened to me. Coming back for my second year it was a relief. I had thought that every student would remember it had been me who had opened the chamber of secrets, who had unlashed the monster within. I had thought everyone would hate me and I was desperate to make a good second impression. To redeem the things I'd done without knowing at the time. So I became the funny, witty, strong, good-looking, popular girl I had wanted to be the first time around. It's quite easy if you just act the part. Silencing charms were put over my bed every night as to not wake up my fellow dorm mates while tossing around, tangling myself in the sheets. My dazzling, but false, smile distracted from the turmoil behind my eyes. The mask was well chosen and perfectly worn. It deceived everyone. My fellow students, my brothers, my parents and Harry.

But the nightmares hadn't stopped after the first few weeks nor after years. They became fewer. I learned to laugh again without forcing myself. I learned to enjoy Quidditch once more. But the nightmares never ceased.

When I close my eyes I can still see his handsome face. The pale 16-year-old boy with the high cheekbones and his jet-black hair. At first sight one could mistake him for an improved version of Harry Potter. In contrast to the boy-who-lived Tom's hair lay in a perfect manner on his head and his statue was tall. His movements were elegant and, oh, he was so charming. Could I really be scolded upon for falling for him? Even his dark eyes had been flirting with me and he had _understood_. Oh Merlin, he had understood me like nobody else. My fears, my wishes, my secret desires. Never judging me, always encouraging.

But then the times in which I didn't know what I had done increased. Something had been off and the feeling that it had to do with the handsome boy crawled up my neck until I couldn't ignore it any longer. I tried to get rid of him, Godric knows, I tried. But by then I had become an addict. He had gotten me hooked on his presence, his smile, his coaxing words. Nevertheless, I saw the devilish spark appear in his beautiful dark eyes. By hindsight, I guess it had always been there. But I had become too weak to resist and he became stronger every day.

Until I was nothing but a ghost of myself. Just a shell to accommodate his soul, a tool to carry out his tasks. Long before Harry found me in this clamp chamber had I lost myself. I felt it. I felt Tom draining my energy, sucking it out of my body bit by bit. When I heard Harry's voice it was from far away. I had always been a fighter but I wasn't _me_ anymore. If the boy-who-lived hadn't stabbed that goddamn diary I wouldn't have made it. I had no strength left to fight, to come back. Even after my handsome parasite had gone it took everything that was left to emerge from the blissful nothingness. It had taken even more to become _me_ again. No, it _takes_ even more.

I don't ever want to encounter a boggart. I know which form it would take and I can't think of anything that would make _him_ funny. Of course it's not him. No creature could ever be him. But, as much as I would like to consider myself strong, I know I would be frozen to the spot if I ever had to see him again. Even if it was only an impersonator.

 _I forgot_. Everyone forgot – except me.

I can't stop my nightmares. I can't avoid every situation which reminds me of his power over me. But I try. Because I would lose myself again if I don't.

"Are you sure you don't want anything? It was a shit day after all. A shit week, really." Seamus' bloodshot eyes meet mine.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

3


End file.
